Has anyone used Easy Grammar? All I've read are positive reviews, so please tell me both good and bad, if you have an opinion;) Thanks!

Well, last year was our first year, and only my daughter, then a 4th grader, had a project. She had always wanted to do that old experiment where you put water, sugar, and yeast into an empty water bottle, put a balloon over the opening, and the reaction causes the balloon to expand. But this wasn't a testable question, so she decided to test which sweetener the yeast likes best. This year, all three of my kids did projects. My 2nd grade son wasn't sure about a project, so he tested packing material by putting an egg in the middle of various matarials and throwing each package out a second story window. It's not original, but he wasn't one to pass up the opportunity to throw stuff out the window. My kindergartener is young at age 5 and still doesn't understand the scientific process. But I still wanted him to get used to doing a science fair project. I tried to talk him into something relatively simple, such as testing if crickets prefer light or darkness, but he insisted he wanted to use "zooming cars". He loves cars :) So he tested to see how many books high he needed to build his race track to get Hot Wheels cars to jump over all eight of the stairs in our house. He didn't fully understand and he couldn't completely explain what he did and what it meant. He just knows he wants to do it again. :D I plan on doing simple experiments over the summer with him to help him have a better grasp on what he's doing and hopefully he'll be more successful next year. But my 5th grader, this was her second year in the science fair. Again, she chose something she'd always wanted to try, which was make a potato clock, and then thought of a testable question in which she could use that concept. This time, though, it wasn't as well received, as you probably read earlier in this thread. She didn't receive many comments but all her ratings were just average and the few comments said, basically, that she did a great job but the subject has been well used. In other words, it's a well-known "whiz bang" experiment from a book and not something she had to research much. And after a couple of days consideration, I'm amazed that I didn't see this clearly as she was trying to pick out her science fair project in the first place. So for next year, which would be April 2013, she has decided to get a huge head start. And she may wind up doing a couple of projects before then and then trying to decide which one she wants to make a presentation on. We haven't been sure where to start, but Ruth has been so helpful talking me through this. Daphne is going to start with simply cataloging what she finds in a tide pool we often go to. We agree that we will likely visit tide pools on a few other beaches, too, to see what she finds. She will draw pictures of things, look up their scientific names, and I will encourage her to discover if pools are in the low, mid, or high tide zones, if she can determine that, how wide, long, and deep the tide pools are, and just everything we can think of. I am also going to try to look for a tide pool near where a river or creek empties into the Sound, if I can, and see if she can find any differences there. Although if we can find that, I'm wondering if we are more likely to find mud flats than tide pools. Just today we looked for the exact spot where the largest river around here empties into the Sound and found that while we can see it, the beach area is inaccessible because of the lumber mill and the Port equipment. My dad worked at the lumber mill for years so maybe I can work something out, but with the mill there, I doubt we'd find much, even if we did gain access. The tide pool that we most often go to is very close to the old Asarco Smelting plant. So it's possible that that may have had an effect on the tide pool and all the life in the Sound right there. http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM19AN_ASARCO_Inc_Tacoma_Washington I haven't even mentioned it to Daphne yet, though. I don't want to overwhelm her. I just want her to do as much research as can and wants to, in order to help her find her exact science project. People still fish and crab off the docks right there so there are a lot of people who don't seem worried. We've watched the people as they pull the sea critters up and we haven't seen any mutants yet :D Does my endless rambling help at all? ;) This is apparently going to be a long process for us, but my daughter especially loves science so I think this will be fun. Since I had all the kids this year, I dragged dh along with us to all the fairs, so he got to experience it all first hand. He keeps joking now that next year the kids are going to experiment with lasers and explosives. LOL He even suggested making their own nuclear bomb once. Yes, he's nuts but he is encouraging, which I love. As for where to find the science fairs, the only reason I even know about the ones we participated in is because the homeschool laison has a booth at the biggest homeschool convention in the state every year. I'm so thankful she does! I know that it's sponsored by Intel. I don't know if that helps you at all. I do know, also, that the middle schoolers are eligible to be sent to a national science fair in Washington DC. I am not sure what it's called, though. This is the link to the Washington State Science Fair, where we participated. http://www.wssef.org/ Not sure if that will help, either, but I bet if you contact one of the board members and tell them what state you are in, they may be able to refer you to somewhere specific.

Here we do first the regional science fair and then the state science fair. They are close together, but last year they were the same weekend. This year at the regional fair, I heard one parent who also had a 5th grader say, "Gee, next year I guess we'll get your project off the internet if you want to win." to her son. So she was apparently jealous of the very good projects that were there. Daphne won 3rd place at regional with her project, but just Honorable Mention at state. The state science fair judges are notoriously easier judges than the regional science fair judges. I think this is largely because at regional they grade/award on the curve and at state they grade/award each project on their own merit. What's a little odd though is that at regionals you are not allowed to have any models, props, or anything. You can have your display board, and your should have your science journal, and that's it. While at the state science fair you can certainly have models, etc in front of your display board. You just can't have any food, water, or anything living or dead. Also, at regionals, my 3 kids and 1 other 5th grade girl were the only homeschoolers in the K-5 science fair. But the state science fair has a large number of homeschoolers. In fact, state has it's own homeschooler laison on the committee. Not sure why I'm sharing all that, but Chez J's post reminded me of the mom's comment who was sitting behind us at the regional science fair. There were a lot of impressive projects in both science fairs, but most especially the state science fair. At the regional fair it seemed that all the impressive, serious projects were not only the projects that won, but also were the projects were the child intended to go on to state. You don't have to win a spot to go on state. You just sign up and go, but if you have a regional science fair in your area you must participate in that if you want to participate in state. After getting only Honorable Mention at state, and comparing her project to the projects of her peers in her mind, this is a huge motivator for her. Not just that she loves science and she wants to learn, but that she wants to compete on the same level as her peers. The peers that did impressive science projects instead of your standard run of the mill project. The regional fair is not too far from us, but the state science fair is an hour away. It's happened yearly for more than 50 years, but I never heard of it until I met the state homeschooler laison at the homeschool convention. My daughter asked me when we were on our way up to the state science fair on the second day if I would have participated if I'd known about it. I told her that I didn't think my parents would have taken me an hour away so I could enter :( I also think that the kids with the most successful projects have a lot of support from their parents and I don't know my parents would have supported me well enough to participate, either. I'm so thankful that I'm a homeschooling parent and that I have the opportunity to support my kids to acheive any goal they set for themselves.

Thanks, Brownie! :) Hopefully she will be able to get her scientific juices flowing.

I will definitely find out. I just remember looking things up and seeing it wouldn't work. I'll have to check the website. I was actually starting to think something like this. I asked her today what she thought of tide pools. She said they are gross and cool at the same time :D (It made me remember when I showed the big kids some barnacles feeding in a tidepool and when they saw the little "arms" dart out and in again they both were disgusted LOL) I asked her if she would be interested in maybe cataloging a tide pool, or maybe tide pools on a few different beaches, in an effort to come up with something she's interested in. We may do this. I'm trying to figure out if we should just do the closest beach with a tide pool that always seems to be there whenever we go, or if we really should do a few different beaches. I know we can go to the ocean, but I don't actually know of any tidepools there so we'd have to look around a bunch on the coast to find one. This is really helpful. I so appreciate you brainstorming with me. I know my daughter will enjoy doing all this. Especially because it deals with critters, which she absolutely loves. I've been thinking about the frogs, raccoons, possums, rabbits, and squirrels we have around here, too. But many we wouldn't be able to have full access to unless we trapped them, which we don't want to do. We have an abundance of slugs, including some incredibley large slugs, but I don't know she'd want to work with them. I've got to get dinner together and visit my grandma in the hospital. Thanks so much, Ruth, for talking me through this. :grouphug:

All she's come up with so far is she wonders if liquid can be on fire. She remembered how I told her about a river that was on fire because it was so dirty. This led her to wonder if other liquids could be on fire, whether they were dirty or not. But we agree that testing fire might not be the best choice. After last year, she considered seeing what type of natural items, like salt, could preserve food the best. But we found the rules state that anything that would grow bacteria must be tested in an actual lab, so that was out. I asked her what she might be interested in with animals and her answer was "EVERYTHING!" This is why I am thinking zoology would be good for her. She went on to tell me that "there is a lizard that shoots blood out of it's eye, and that Cheetahs can run 60 MPH, which is as fast as we go on the freeway. But it can only do that in short bursts." She would have gone on telling me more animal facts, and probably did, but her brothers came running through with all their noise, requiring my attention, so I am not sure what else she said. I asked her if she were interested in reptiles or flying creatures or marine animals, and she said all animals. We live very near Puget Sound, and the coast of the Pacific Ocean is maybe an hour away. We go there every summer and we wouldn't mind an excuse to go test things there. But probably if we did marine animals it would be something from Puget Sound. I know we have the Enteroctopus Dofleini under the Narrows Bridge in Puget Sound. It's one of the largest octopus in the world. Also, Galloping Gertie was the original Narrows Bridge, but it was too unstable in the wind and eventually crashed into the Sound many, many years ago. It's still in the Sound, and is now home to many of our sea critters in the Sound. This is stuff that I'm coming up with, though. ;) The Science Fair Project book I have I bought after this year's science fair. It list actual science fair project ideas and the author suggests using these ideas as a starting point to come up with your own ideas.

Another x-post! LOL I definitely understand! I don't want to do her project for her. I want her to learn from her experience and enjoy it. It's hard to be proud of something if you didn't do it yourself. This is what I came to realize when thinking about this the next day. This is why I feel I've failed her for this year. I didn't fully understand this myself. But now that I do, I will definitely be prepared to push her and help her go in the direction that is expected of her for next year. Yes, she and I have discussed this now, too, and I think she can see this as well. I even pointed out how she scored higher the previous year because of this factor. Her first year her project was to find which kind of sweetener yeast would like best. When I mentioned this, she brought up how bakers and food manufacturers could use that information to find cheaper ways to make their food products, or use this information to help manufacture diet versions of their products. But that this year's product, electric produce, wasn't applicable to the real world, because we can't take her information, grow a gigantic apple, and power our house with it. Yes, everything you've written really helps tremendously. I think the challenge will be in coming up with a way to test whatever question/purpose she comes up with. For example - poison vs. venom, which is more toxic and which has more useful properties? We can't really test these. We'd be stuck mostly with research. I do want to encourage her to actually write people to ask for information in her research process. She's a little shy and doesn't want to interview people, but writing them should be helpful to her. I"ve told her she should consider something in Zoology, since her biggest interests are animals. But she hasn't decided anything yet. She's got lots of time. I'd just like to get her started on something soon. She may do two projects before next year's fair and then choose one as it gets closer. Thank you so much for talking me through this. I am determined to be useful to my kids so they can not just learn but be as successful as they want to be.

I definitely understand! I don't want to do her project for her. I want her to learn from her experience and enjoy it. It's hard to be proud of something if you didn't do it yourself. This is what I came to realize when thinking about this the next day. This is why I feel I've failed her for this year. I didn't fully understand this myself. But now that I do, I will definitely be prepared to push her and help her go in the direction that is expected of her for next year. Yes, she and I have discussed this now, too, and I think she can see this as well. I even pointed out how she scored higher the previous year because of this factor. Her first year her project was to find which kind of sweetener yeast would like best. When I mentioned this, she brought up how bakers and food manufacturers could use that information to find cheaper ways to make their food products, or use this information to help manufacture diet versions of their products. But that this year's product, electric produce, wasn't applicable to the real world, because we can't take her information, grow a gigantic apple, and power our house with it. Yes, everything you've written really helps tremendously. I think the challenge will be in coming up with a way to test whatever question/purpose she comes up with. For example - poison vs. venom, which is more toxic and which has more useful properties? We can't really test these. We'd be stuck mostly with research. I do want to encourage her to actually write people to ask for information in her research process. She's a little shy and doesn't want to interview people, but writing them should be helpful to her. I"ve told her she should consider something in Zoology, since her biggest interests are animals. But she hasn't decided anything yet. She's got lots of time. I'd just like to get her started on something soon. She may do two projects before next year's fair and then choose one as it gets closer. Thank you so much for talking me through this. I am determined to be useful to my kids so they can not just learn but be as successful as they want to be.

Gosh, I didn't even realize this board exsisted! I posted this original post on the General Parenting Board but it was suggested I bring it here. I couldn't see how to move the thread so I simply cross-posted it.

My kids entered the regional and state science fairs this year. It was my oldest's second time and she's an 11 year old 5th grader. My boys are 8 and 5 and they had fun and got exactly the right experience for their age from this. My daughter, however, was disappointed at her score in the state science fair. Initially I was very surprised she only received Honorable Mention when last year she received Second Place. But looking at many of the other projects I think it wasn't that she didn't do a good job. It was that her experiment/ project wasn't as indepth as some of her peers. After her shock and disappointment, she has determined that she will work very hard with the goal of First Place in mind. She found she will have the added incentive of being in the Middle School category for the first time. This will make her eligible for one of 20 spots from each state science fair that goes on to a National Science Fair. Now I've told her that 8th graders are most likely to be chosen for most of those spots since it's their last year of eligibility, but I told her that she shouldn't let that stop her from trying. My big question is, though, is that some of the projects didn't seem to have experiments. I wish I could go back and look at some of them now to see how some are put together. I am wondering how a Science Fair Project is put together without an experiment? Such as, one girl, a friend she made last year, had a project asking if a certain flower is used as a coloring or a healing drug. I wish I'd looked more closely at her project but with 3 kids in the fair, spread across the gym, it was hard to look around much. I know she couldn't have been injecting this in drug form into people to see if it cures cancer, so how would she test her theory? And how would she come up with a hypothesis? It really sounds more like a research project. Another girl, my daughter said, had a project about if there are more male or female pandas in captivity. She wrote zoos to ask for information. Again, I don't know all the details, so I don't know if she wrote every zoo. And I dont' know how she came up with a hypothesis or an experiment. I just know that my daughter mentioned this girl's project when I told her that some of the information she might use could come from writing zoos, aquariums, manufacturers, scientists, etc. I told my daughter that I will help her and work her as hard as she wants so she can acheive her goal. But I need to understand how to help her acheive this. I never had the privilige of making a science project ever while growing up. I never heard of or saw a science fair at all. So, I'm a bit out of my league and it's not fair to my kids, most especially my daughter. I really want to help her be successful. I told her I may even have her do one over the summer, with everything except making the display board, and then do another after that. If she can research and work on topics that interest her between now and then, she will be able to pick and choose whichever of her projects she feels she did the best job on and is the most interesting. At these science fairs, there is a large group of kids from one school in another town. It's obvious they have a large support group in not just the school, but the parents as well. The girl who had the flower project this year had an iPad showing some videos of something to do with her project. Last year she did solar powered cars, which she told me she worked on over the summer. We can't afford an iPad, but I know my daughter wants to work hard and compete. I know if she does work hard and learn a lot, she will do well and doesn't need expensive technology to acheive her goals. I sure wish I'd asked this girl about her project this year. She is very confident, but she's also a very nice girl. So, if my daughter has a science fair project, my understanding is that it should have a Purpose, Hypothesis, Procedure, and Conclusion. Say she decided to discover which is more lethal, venom or poison. What would her procedure be? I mean, she's not going to go collect venom and poison and then inject into mice. She's 11 and I don't know anyone who would allow that, plus, I doubt she would want to do that. I've got the first Janice Van Cleave book on 50 Science Fair Projects which is helpful, but I'm still not quite understanding what all her options are. Sorry for this really long ramble. The science fair was just last weekend so we have an entire year to make a plan and execute it. I just feel like I've failed her and wasn't a good enough teacher and I want to make sure that I don't fail her again. She's smart and loves science and she shouldn't fail because of me.

Wow, thanks so much! I really want to help my daughter be successful, so I want to learn as much as I can. Her project this year was Fruits Vs. Veggies. She experimented to see which was more electric, fruits or vegetables. She had apples, oranges, and lemons for the fruit, and potatoes, cucumbers, and carrots for the veggies. Her hypothesis was that fruit would be more electric than vegetables, and that apples would be most electric over all. And she was right! She did the old potato clock experiment on the produce, measuring voltage with a multimeter, and she had 3 of each sample. She kept everything in the fridge until she was ready, and tested each item 3 times at 2 minute intervals. So you can see she is willing to do the work, but you can also see how this isn't a very indepth experiment for a 5th grader. I just honestly didn't realize this, having no experience for myself. I'm going to leave this post on this board until tomorrow, in case anyone's interested, then I will follow your advice and move it to the logic board. :) Thanks so much for the links. I'm going to investigate them tomorrow when my brain has had some rest.

My kids entered the regional and state science fairs this year. It was my oldest's second time and she's an 11 year old 5th grader. My boys are 8 and 5 and they had fun and got exactly the right experience for their age from this. My daughter, however, was disappointed at her score in the state science fair. Initially I was very surprised she only received Honorable Mention when last year she received Second Place. But looking at many of the other projects I think it wasn't that she didn't do a good job. It was that her experiment/ project wasn't as indepth as some of her peers. After her shock and disappointment, she has determined that she will work very hard with the goal of First Place in mind. She found she will have the added incentive of being in the Middle School category for the first time. This will make her eligible for one of 20 spots from each state science fair that goes on to a National Science Fair. Now I've told her that 8th graders are most likely to be chosen for most of those spots since it's their last year of eligibility, but I told her that she shouldn't let that stop her from trying. My big question is, though, is that some of the projects didn't seem to have experiments. I wish I could go back and look at some of them now to see how some are put together. I am wondering how a Science Fair Project is put together without an experiment? Such as, one girl, a friend she made last year, had a project asking if a certain flower is used as a coloring or a healing drug. I wish I'd looked more closely at her project but with 3 kids in the fair, spread across the gym, it was hard to look around much. I know she couldn't have been injecting this in drug form into people to see if it cures cancer, so how would she test her theory? And how would she come up with a hypothesis? It really sounds more like a research project. Another girl, my daughter said, had a project about if there are more male or female pandas in captivity. She wrote zoos to ask for information. Again, I don't know all the details, so I don't know if she wrote every zoo. And I dont' know how she came up with a hypothesis or an experiment. I just know that my daughter mentioned this girl's project when I told her that some of the information she might use could come from writing zoos, aquariums, manufacturers, scientists, etc. I told my daughter that I will help her and work her as hard as she wants so she can acheive her goal. But I need to understand how to help her acheive this. I never had the privilige of making a science project ever while growing up. I never heard of or saw a science fair at all. So, I'm a bit out of my league and it's not fair to my kids, most especially my daughter. I really want to help her be successful. I told her I may even have her do one over the summer, with everything except making the display board, and then do another after that. If she can research and work on topics that interest her between now and then, she will be able to pick and choose whichever of her projects she feels she did the best job on and is the most interesting. At these science fairs, there is a large group of kids from one school in another town. It's obvious they have a large support group in not just the school, but the parents as well. The girl who had the flower project this year had an iPad showing some videos of something to do with her project. Last year she did solar powered cars, which she told me she worked on over the summer. We can't afford an iPad, but I know my daughter wants to work hard and compete. I know if she does work hard and learn a lot, she will do well and doesn't need expensive technology to acheive her goals. I sure wish I'd asked this girl about her project this year. She is very confident, but she's also a very nice girl. So, if my daughter has a science fair project, my understanding is that it should have a Purpose, Hypothesis, Procedure, and Conclusion. Say she decided to discover which is more lethal, venom or poison. What would her procedure be? I mean, she's not going to go collect venom and poison and then inject into mice. She's 11 and I don't know anyone who would allow that, plus, I doubt she would want to do that. I've got the first Janice Van Cleave book on 50 Science Fair Projects which is helpful, but I'm still not quite understanding what all her options are. Sorry for this really long ramble. The science fair was just last weekend so we have an entire year to make a plan and execute it. I just feel like I've failed her and wasn't a good enough teacher and I want to make sure that I don't fail her again. She's smart and loves science and she shouldn't fail because of me.

Oh, that burns me up! Why would they say that? I can't think of any books at the moment, but I will think on it. My kids all joined us through adoption and are all children of color while dh and I are white. My dd went through the same thing about preschool age, when all the other kids were little white kids with straight hair. I talked it up a great deal about how beautiful her hair is and she eventually came to see how wonderful her hair is in it's natural state. If anyone suggests straightening it now she is deeply offended. My other 2 are boys. My oldest boy has never cared. He's just mad dad won't shave a mohawk into his hair :001_huh: My youngest, however, insists he needs straight hair, like Robin of Batman and Robin. ;) I keep pointing out people with wonderfully curly hair like his, such as his Uncle Kevin. It's hard at the moment but I know it will stick eventually. Now if I could get him to stop caring so much about how cool his clothes are.......

Has anyone used this and do you like it? I haven't gone with any total box curriculum but I like the looks of a lot of Timberdoodle's. Of course, I'm planning on continuing with Math U See, and we may do Zoology 3 instead of the anatomy they have listed but I can see us using a lot of what's listed. I am wondering, though, how helpful and necessary the Timberdoodle Planning Folder is. I mean, I may piece together what they have listed from a few sources but it looks like the only way to get the planning folder is to order the entire package. Does anyone know how helpful it is? Does it have some kind of schedule it recommends?

Yeah, when my son was in OT a few years ago, that didn't work so well with him, either. I think partially because his OT didn't quite seem to know what to do with him. I may order the first book off Amazon to check it out. We'll see how it goes from there.

Gosh, those Michelle Garcia Winner books look great! Does anyone have any recommendation of what I should get first? Is online the only place to get them? I like to preview books if I can, as they get expensive very quickly. What about The Incredible 5-Point Scale? Is that one to start with? Or would I start with You Are A Social Detective? And are some of these products actual curriculum that I would use as part of school? I'm already planning for next year, but I'm always on the look out for things that would help my 8 year old Aspie socially. He really needs it and it's hard to find something for every situation. (Ie: you don't call the sample lady at Costco an "evil lady" because she's giving out rice milk and you don't like rice milk, or you don't get mad and tell someone you hate them just because they tell a Harry Potter joke, which is his current obsession)

I have this book! I happened upon it at a Borders going out of business sale and I'm so glad I did. It is actually very helpful to us. I'll be looking into the other recommendations, too.

Thanks for sharing! I might have to order some of the real ones. My dd got some fake plastic owl pellets for Christmas. She was really looking forward to it, but once she heard it was plastic it just wasn't as cool. It's just one complete plastic skeleton and it's labeled exactly what animal it represents. I think she'd have much more fun mucking around in a real one and trying to figure out what it is.

as my mailbox has curriculum catalogs in it every day now! They are filled with all the fun stuff I wish I could afford. I dont' know what I"m going to do when they are getting toward high school age, yet are not old enough for Running Start at the community college. The older they are, the more stuff they need for school. Oh, *sigh* Just a "poor me" rant. Hopefully our budget will improve as years go by, so we can better afford things. Our convention is in June and I'm scrimping and saving everything I can.

Lots of good information here! I'd also recommend www.worksheetworks.com I have been using this site since last year and it's good for adding to what I have. I often add a math puzzle type sheet to my dd's math, if she's only doing one lesson from MUS. There is all kinds of stuff on that site. I also like www.teacherfilebox.com. There is a fee, though, either $12.99 per month or, I believe, it's $100 per year. She might try it to see if she likes it before committing, though. And like someone said, EdHelper is good, too, so I don't know that I'd do both of those sites. Probably just one or the other.

Does anyone who uses this find that using a color printer is a must? I have one, but it's not cooperative at the moment. I do have a B&W laser printer which I try to do most of my printing on.

:auto:BUMP! I was just looking at a bunch of books at the teaching store today and trying to figure out the best way to maximize my very limited amount of money. I looked at Scholastic's Teacher Express, and it looks like the $1 sale they were having yesterday is over today. :( But a bunch of the books I looked at today were from Evan Moor. Several of them included transparencies, which I have no need for, but which made the cost of the book much more expensive. As I sat here contemplating my options, I remembered this thread! I'm sure the special is over ( I think it was just for January, but I'm going to go look), but I just might try the monthly subscription, at least for now. We'll see if I'll actually use any of these books. All I know is my middle son is finished with one of his workbooks and I need to replace it. It sure would be nice to make some of those Take To Your Seat games, too! So BUMP! as I think outloud on the boards here for no apparent reason! :D

Thanks for sharing!

Searching for fun Valentine's Day puzzles and such, I came across EdHelper. It had some fun looking stuff, but unfortunately you have to be a paid member to access them. It's $20 a year, which isn't expensive, but we all know how quickly little things can add up. I try to minimize things like this. So, does anyone have a membership and do you find it's worth it? Have you or would you use this more than one year, even?

:lurk5: